My Thoughts On The Israel-Lebanon Conflict

Topic(s): me,politics
2006-07-31 02:07:09 PDT

Can the present situation in and around Israel be any more messed up?

• Today Israel bombed innocent Lebanese civilians, killing fifty of them. This after Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israeli civilians from within their own Lebanese civilian neighborhoods.
• The present bloodshed began when Hezbollah kidnapped and hid a pair of soldiers from within Israel. This after Israel abducted (aka "kidnapped") and imprisoned (aka "hid") several Hezbollah terrorists (aka "soldiers") from within Lebanon.
• The Israeli soldiers were kidnapped along the border of Lebanon, on land which Israel had recently returned to Lebanon in good faith. But then of course, Israel in its entirety was forged from other nations' lands in good faith.
• Israel is bent on the complete annihilation of Hezbollah. Hezbollah is bent on the complete annihilation of Israel. It's not out of the question that both of them may win.

Like most disagreements, both parties are at fault, both sides have legitimate concerns, both sides have legitimate convictions.

The long-standing problems as I see them - just one side has the ability to end it, and the other side refuses to ever admit defeat. The latter of those problems being the largest, and causing the most pain for the civilian citizens of the clashing nations who would otherwise go about their civilian lives.

I really hope for both sides that they are soon able to make their way toward peace.

As an American, it bothers me greatly to hear Lebanese crowds chanting "death to America." What did we ever do to Lebanon?

I think we airlifted medical supplies to Beirut a few times, but otherwise we've never dropped anything on them.

They may be upset that we sell F-16 aircraft and lasar-guided bombs to Israel. But would the Lebanese prefer the Israelis drop non-lasar-guided bombs?

Also note we do sell F-16 aircraft to other Muslim nations. Notably, the ones who don't typically chant "death to America."

I'm also stunned by Muslims upset that America isn't doing enough to help the peace process. What business is it of ours in the first place? Why should we help at all?

Sometimes I wonder what people in that area of the world know about the United States. I wonder, if given an unmarked world map, if they could locate the United States. I wonder if the first place they'd point to would be Europe, somewhere between the UK and Italy.

If I were the president of the United States, my peace proposal would be pretty drastic.

I'd push to move everybody out of that area of the world. Everybody.

Like to children squabbling over a toy, the only way to fairly solve the squabble is to let neither child have it.

Move everybody out. For one quarter of a millennium. That's about ten generations. Adaquately long such that, I'd hope, every race and creed would forget why they wanted the land in the first place.

The world won't much miss a small piece of land 90% the size of New Jersey. And anyway, it's not like it's Yellowstone National Park quality type of land, nor Gastein Valley, nor even the afueras of Mexico City.

That area of the world has two well-known qualities:

1. hosting a never-ending war, and
2. hosting significant historical religious sites.

The latter of those two would be quite well-preserved if everyone were to move out.

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